Criteo Feed Specification (Classified)

The product feed is a data file which contains information about all the advertisements on your site that will be used to build your dynamic ads.

In this article, you will find details about what you can include in your feed and how to format each field.

It is important to keep in mind the following points when building your product feed:

Product information should not contain HTML tags or style tags

The product IDs in the feed must match the product IDs passed in the tags.

To make sure Criteo can retrieve your product feed, please use one of these formats:

Format

Detail

Download

CSV/TSV

This format is based on the Comma-separated value or the Tab-separated value. The header must be declared in the first row of the file.Field names can contain spaces or underscores (e.g. image_link or image link)

1. PRODUCT INFORMATION TO PROVIDE

1.1. MANDATORY FIELDS

id

This field is required for all products in the feed, and cannot be empty/blank.

The id is a unique alphanumeric identifier that represents one, and only one, ad. Once an id is assigned to a product and imported, the id may not be used for a different product, nor can the id for a particular product change. If you have item_group_id also populated, populate id with the child ID/SKU.

Character Requirements: The id must only contain ASCII characters, and must not contain quotation marks.

Limit: 240

Type: String

Example: B789465

title

This field is required for all products in the feed, and cannot be empty/blank.

The title is the product’s dedicated detail page. The link is usually, although not necessarily, unique to a given product. The product information on this URL should match the corresponding information provided in your feed. Please specify the protocol (http:// or https://) for all URLs.

This is the URL where users will be redirected after clicking on the product in a banner. Tracking codes can be included in the URL or Criteo can add them later. If you have a mobile site, we advise that the product URL automatically redirects to your mobile site product page when the user uses a mobile device.

link

This field is required for all products in the feed, and cannot be empty/blank.

The link is a link into calendar page for given city pair, or search results page, where the promoted price can be found. You can pass useful extra data to accelerate user inputs: number of tickets, children, etc. Please specify the protocol (http:// or https://) for all URLs.

Character Requirements: The link must start with the protocol (http:// or https://) followed by the full URL of the product detail page. All symbols must be encoded. Eg. $ must be replaced with %24. Including non-ASCII characters such as non-English letters.

Limit: 1024

Type: String

Example: http://www.travelsite.com/flight/JFK-LHR.html

image_link

This field is required for all products in the feed, and cannot be empty/blank.

The image_link is a URL that specifies a file path to a given product’s image. The bigimage will be used to display the product’s image in the banners. Ideally, images should be at least 800x800 pixels and weigh under 16MB. The image must have a Content-Type header specified, either image/png, image/gif or image/jpeg. If you restrict your images from being accessible via cURL, please whitelist our user-agent so we may display your images in the Criteo banners: curl/7.15+ (x64-criteo) libcurl/7.15+ OpenSSL zlib libidn.

Character Requirements: The image_link must start with http:// or https:// followed by the full URL of the product’s image. All symbols must be encoded. Eg. $ must be replaced with %24. Including non-ASCII characters such as non-English letters.

Limit: 2000

Type: String

Example: http://www.travelsite.com/images/london_big.jpg

price

The price is the price at which the product is available for purchase on the site. If a given product is ‘on sale’, the price would be populated with the lower price. The price should be in the same currency as the site. Only populate price with the numeric price using a period (.) as the decimal separator and no thousands separator.

Character Requirements: The decimal separator must be a period (.) with no thousands separator.

Limit: 14

Type: String

Example: 20.99

categoryid1

The categoryid1 is the first-level category to which the product belongs (you may provide up to 3 category levels in your feed but only one can be used for CPC-optimization).

Character Requirements: N/S

Limit: N/S

Type: String

Example: Computing

1.2. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FIELDS

The below fields are not required, but highly recommended as they will ease campaign management, help improve performance, and/or improve shopper experience.

additional_image_link

The additional_image_link is a URL that specifies a file path to a given product’s image. The additional_image_link will be used to display the product’s image in the banners. Ideally, images should be at least 800x800 pixels and weigh under 16MB. The image must have a Content-Type header specified, either image/png, image/gif or image/jpeg. If you restrict your images from being accessible via cURL, please whitelist our user-agent so we may display your images in the Criteo banners: curl/7.15+ (x64-criteo) libcurl/7.15+ OpenSSL zlib libidn.

Character Requirements: The additional_image_link must start with http:// (not https://) followed by the full URL of the product’s image. All symbols must be encoded. Eg. $ must be replaced with %24. However, the additional_image_link cannot contain any symbols in the query string (any characters after the ?).

Limit: 2000

Type: String

Example: http://www.travelsite.com/images/london_big.jpg

description

This field is required for running Facebook ads.

The description is a short piece of text that gives more information about a product in addition to its name. Because of the design of the banners, shorter descriptions (under 50 characters) are more likely to fit in Criteo’s formats and layouts, however, not all formats and layouts will have a description.

Character Requirements: The description must start with a letter or number. Remove all HTML tags from this field, including style, embed, object, and anchor tags.

Limit: 5000

Type: String

Example: Vintage Green Kettle

categoryid2

The categoryid2 is the second-level category to which the product belongs.

Character Requirements: N/S

Limit: N/S

Type: String

Example: Keyboards and Mice.

1.3. RECOMMENDED FIELDS

sale_price

The sale_price is the price the manufacturer recommends the product is to be sold for. If a given product is “on sale”, the price field would be populated with the higher price. The price should be in the same currency as the site. Only populate price with the numeric value using a period (.) as the decimal separator and no thousands separator.

Character Requirements: The decimal separator must be a period (.) with no thousands separator.

Limit: 14

Type: String

Example: 34.99

star

Rating of item (decimal point as separator).

Character Requirements: number from 1 to 5 in steps of 0.5.

Limit: N/S

Type: number.

Example: 4.5

categoryid3

The categoryid3 is the third-level category to which the product belongs.

Character Requirements: N/S

Limit: N/S

Type: String

Example: Wireless Mice.

availability

The availability indicates if the product may be purchased on the site. You may populate availability with 3 possible values: preorder (item is not currently shipping, but still may be purchased), out of stock (item is not shipping and you are not accepting orders for this item), and in stock (item is shipping and orders may be placed for this item). Items marked as out of stock will be excluded from being shown in the banners.

Character Requirements: The availability must be populated with one of the following three values: